Stephanie Senner | BendBroadband

Internet Power Tools to Drive

BUSINESS

Contents

• Introduction:– Why do I need the Internet to drive my business?– What actually drives business according to Central Oregon

business owners?

• Tools for Growth & Finances• Tools for Customer Experience• Tools for Productivity & Organization

DRIVE BUSINESS?Why do I need the Internet to

The Changing Day (for your customers and you)

DRIVES BUSINESS?What actually

“What Is Your #1 Business Goal This Year?”

20%

44%

24%

11%

Customer ExperienceGrowthStaffing/ProductivityRelationships/ Networking

Let’s take a look at three priorities for Central Oregon businesses.

1Growth &Finances

2Customer

Experience

3Productivity &

Organization

“Only those who will risk

going too farcan possibly find out how far they can go.”

-T.S. Eliot

Growth & Finances

Find and Retain More Customers

1

How to Know When You’re Growing

• inDinero– Pulls and organizes transaction

history – No data entry – Sorts transactions by category and

tracks spending changes monthly– Accounting reports – Plans range from free to $49.95 per

month

• BodeTree – Only works w/Intuit’s QuickBooks– Automatic breakdowns of expenses– Shows how you stack up against

competitors – Offers financial projections – Calculates estimation of your

company's worth– “Business enlightenment score” of

overall health of your business according to their algorithms

– $250 a year or $24.99 a month

• Corelytics – Imports financial info from

QuickBooks, Sage Peachtree, MYOB, and others

– Monitor whatever metrics you want and set goals for each

– Revenue, expense, profits, receivables, gross margin,

– Dashboard colors each metric red, yellow, or green, depending on where you are against goals you set

– Compare your progress with competitors

– Plans range from free to $69 a month w/ $180 set-up fee

SEO, PPC, and Other Things to Outsource

• SEO– See last breakfast presentation

• PPC– Adwords and Facebook (Test | Offer | Get Help)

• Remarketing– Display ads for people who have visited your website

• Display Network– Display ads sites for people w/ defined interests

• Retargeting– Display ads for people who have not visited your website

(but have searched for certain keywords)• Beta

• Go home, Facebook. You’re drunk.– On top of freaking me out with the dress I just looked at,

they are telling me my best friend from college and my old bible study teacher like their website. Really?

Most Expensive Google Keywords

http://www.wordstream.com/articles/most-expensive-keywords

Content Marketing: Beyond YOUR Blog

• Write a guest blog article• From Shopify article on Resource

hand-out, here is help identifying relevant blogs:– www.invesp.com/blog-rank

Blog ranking directory w/ category search

– www.alltop.com news aggregator site

– www.Technorati.com Top 100 blogs within different niches

– www.Alexa.com Top sites by category; research a site’s traffic and audience profile by entering the web address

– www.MyBlogGuest.com Forum for finding guest bloggers • Use Alexa to ensure sites have traffic

• Create a relationship • Comment on and share their

content• Suggest a dynamite story

(maybe even write it first)• Take time to cultivate the

relationships• Opportunity to curate

content for your own blog, Twitter feed, Facebook posts, etc.

WiseStamp: Email Signatures with Dynamic Content

My New Favorite Content Site: Slideshare.net

• I’m biased as a B2B Marketer who wants to be buried with her Logitech Pointer Pro, but this site is a treasure trove of information, including training content for business owners.

• Hosts slide decks• Protects content• Embedded lead gen• Analytics dashboard• See also:– Scribd – ZohoShow– SlideRocket

Beyond Words: Growth Through YouTube

• The Obvious:– Product Presentations or

Demonstrations– Video Training– Video Customer

Testimonials – Live video streaming – Commercials

• Content Marketing:– How-to – Advice– Education – Person-on-the-street

interviews at events– Reviews of 3rd party

products or vendors

What Are Your Competitors Doing?

• eNewsletters provide insight into what’s working in your industry

• Look for what your customers would read, too

And Now For Something Totally Different

• Sign up to be an Amazon.com Pick Up Zone

• People who can’t have their packages delivered go pick them up at your business

• And maybe then you sell them something

• May work well in a vacation/resort community like ours

• Sacrifice = space for packages

• Amazon.com to learn more about requirements

“There is only one boss: the customer. And he can

fire everybodyin the company from the chairman on down,

simply by spending his money somewhere else.” -Sam Walton

2 Customer Experience

Improve Your Customers’ Satisfaction

Rock Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day

• http://www.pardot.com/infographic/rock-social-media-30-minutes-day-infographic/

• http://visual.ly/how-much-time-money-do-smbs-spend-social-media

• Reputation.com• Angie’s List• Yelp, Google+, Local Search, Yahoo, etc.• LinkedIn

Another Option: Save Time with HootSuite

• Be careful with this one– People don’t want to see

the same content on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter so use universal publishing sparingly

• See also:– TweetDeck– Seesmic

• Free version includes:– HootSuite Conversations– 5 Social Profiles– Basic Analytics Reports– Message Scheduling– Unlimited Apps– 2 RSS/Atom Feeds

• Pro is $8.99/month

Email Marketing & eNewsletters to Customers

• If you’re using Constant Contact, Emma, etc., consider moving up the ladder to a Marketing automation option:– Act On– Marketo– Pardot– HubSpot– Eloqua

• Drip campaigns based on customer interactions

• Successful newsletter? Sell ad space – Small coupon at the bottom

w/ a different vendor each month

• No successful newsletter? Find someone who has a similar list/business and see if they’ll write an editorial about how great you are.

Loyalty Card Alternative: Perka

• Smartphone versions of punch cards and points cards with promo capability built in

• Seems reasonable– $35/mo for punches– $50/mo for points

• More flexible than Incentify and Punchtab

• More local and proactive than RetailMeNot

More Options for Perka

• Join together w/ others – 10 Dates in 10 Days – Specific neighborhoods

• Speaking of neighborhoods, can we start something today? – SoGAve

• Rhymes with agave, the tequila ingredient• South of Greenwood Ave, ie, west of 27th, South of HWY 20, but east of 97

(since that neighborhood already has a name)– SoCOH

• South of Central Oregon Highway, ie, east of 27th and South of HWY 20

“Time is at once the most valuable and

most perishableof all our possessions.”

-John Randolph

3 Productivity & Organization

Plan and Execute Your Business Priorities

Game Changers

• Asana– Free– Amazing– Integrates w/ Google– Is one Facebook

founder’s attempt to pay back to Productivity what he stole

– Simple, fast help content– Can be used as CRM

• Bitrix24– Free for up to 12 users– Easy but extensible – Integrates w/Outlook– Social intranet

functionality• Distributed workers• Staffing/shift changes

– Project Management– Can be used as CRM

Time Savers

• InstaPaper & Pocket– Pull web content down

to reader or desktop– Great for travel and

archiving

• TripIt & Expensfy– TripIt Pro allows you to

manage others’ travel– “Expense reports that

don’t suck.”

• Learning and Training– Lynda.com– Khan Academy– iTunesU– Bend Chamber of

Commerce website’s Helpful Links page

• Inbox Zero:– Turn it into what it is

• Task, Appointment, Contact, or Trash

– Get Things Done (GTD) <2 minutes = do it now

Communication

• WebEx• GoToMeeting• FuzeMeeting• GoogleChat• Skype• The Phone

– Yes, that counts as an Internet tool.

– Yes, even if it’s CenturyLink.

• File Exchange/Sync– Google Drive– SkyDrive– DropBox– SugarSync– GoToMyPC

• Photo Streams– Flickr– Picassa– Instagram– Google “Digital Asset

Management”

Less Obvious Tools for Collaboration

• VoiceThread– $20/mo/user or $79/mo

for up to 15-ish users– Intuitive interface makes

it easy to get going– Information retention

demonstrably improved

• FlipBoard– Mostly for iPad lovers

• Jing– Free– Screencaps, video,

demos, sharing

• LiveBinders – Content from multiple

sources all in one place– Prevent data stagnation

iPhone Apps

• LiveTimer– Perfect for billable industries or tracking time for

multiple clients– Lets you set up different billing rates

• BalanceDo– Create invoices– Track receivables– Manages customer payments through PayPal